


Snapshots

by chaineddove



Category: Gravitation
Genre: F/M, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-04
Updated: 2012-03-04
Packaged: 2017-11-01 02:54:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 1,633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/351146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chaineddove/pseuds/chaineddove
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A series of drabbles set in and around Stars-verse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Fire

**Author's Note:**

> Tohma/Eiri. Pre-New York.

Just one stolen glimpse of him, and suddenly it is as if he has a little, insistent flame inside, growing. The heat washes quietly over his face — someone has lit a candle. Incense, perhaps — his mind fogs at the sound of that satin-smooth voice. A soft, demure smile, and the flame flutters in an invisible wind. There is life under that perfect polite façade — he knows it. Something is there that scorches him.

He wants the words to say it. They spin through his mind, but never the right ones, so he burns silently for a single cooling green glance.


	2. Distraction

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tohma/Eiri. Set in New York.

His classmates stare when Tohma comes to pick him up from school. He leans against the gate, his hat low over his eyes, his coat sweeping down his graceful, lean body to brush at the pavement. The girl sitting closest to the window sighs, one of her friends giggles hysterically, and no one is paying attention to the teacher any longer.

The bell rings, and he runs down the stairs with his coat unbuttoned, out into the winter sunshine, and, because he can, straight into the warm circle of Tohma’s arms. The wind picks up the hat and it skitters away across the pavement. People stare. They laugh; it doesn’t matter.


	3. Music

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tohma/Eiri. Set in New York.

He caresses the keys of the piano as he would a lover. The sunlight pools on the floor around him and makes a halo around his tousled blond head. The notes come, soft and seductive, flowing like magic from those talented fingers. His eyes are closed as the music passes through him, filling the air with its presence.

When Eiri sees him like this, he sometimes forgets how to breathe. His bare feet are silent on the sun-warmed wood of the floor as he comes closer. He settles on the piano bench, head resting on Tohma’s shoulder, and the music pours into him, too.


	4. Fourteen and Impressionable

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ayaka. Set pre-series.

The first time Ayaka met the man who they meant to be her husband, she was fourteen and impressionable. She had been dressed in her best kimono and her hair had been brushed until it hung shining and smooth down her back. Her hands were cold and she felt herself shaking, a little, when the old monk and the good-looking young man walked into the room and knelt on the cushions across from her and her mother. She performed a perfect tea ceremony as she had been taught and said nothing while the three others talked, watching this Uesugi Eiri from under her lashes. She thought he looked beautiful, but a little dangerous. After a moment’s thought, she decided she liked that about him.

Right before he left was the first time he looked at her. She stared up at him wide-eyed — he was so tall! — and then the corners of his mouth turned up in something like a smile. He didn’t say anything to her then, either, turning and following his father out. Ayaka’s heart beat a little too fast, and she decided this was probably what it was to be an adult, to find someone to love. For the next few years, she remembered him like that, smiling softly, and built their future in her mind, content not to know him at all.


	5. Softer

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tohma/Eiri. No idea when this is set; sometime right before the series, or during it, or right after…

Tohma realizes, when he allows himself to think about it, that too much has changed. Nothing between them is easy now, not glances or conversation or moments of silence. Their kisses, when they happen, are tense, their embraces accidental, brought on by misery and alcohol. Tohma knows this, but he can’t seem to make it matter, on those rare occasions when they find each other again. 

He runs his hands over the miraculously smooth skin of the beloved face, presses trembling lips there. He knows stubble will cover those smooth cheeks in the morning if, of course, he is still here in the morning. He usually isn’t. But Tohma doesn’t let himself think about that, because with Eiri, he has to live for the stolen moments. For now, the skin beneath his hands is smooth, and the cruel golden eyes are almost tender, even if the taste on his lips is new — cigarettes and beer.

“What are you smiling about now, Seguchi?” The edge is off Eiri’s voice, dulled by alcohol. In this moment, harsh reality is softer.

“You taste like an ashtray,” Tohma teases.

“You don’t have to kiss me,” Eiri grumbles, and those fantastic golden eyes narrow.

“Yes,” Tohma says, a little sadly. “I do.”

Letting go is not something he will ever be strong enough to do.


	6. Heartbeat

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Noriko. Set before the break-up of Nittle Grasper. Because as the glue that holds Grasper together, Noriko has the most to lose when it falls apart…

Music is alive. It has a heartbeat; Noriko feels it pulsing through her sometimes, quick and excited, slow and lazy, erratic and breathless under their caressing hands. It is in Tohma’s rare, surprising boyish smile as he brings it into existence, letting it out into the light from where it has been sleeping in the back of his mind. Then Ryuichi gives it breath, and on the wings of his voice, it is allowed to fly free.

There is something that builds between the three of them that she has never experienced before. Music has always been alive, but only with them is it _hers_. They will always be together, Ryuichi says, but when Tohma comes back to them broken, the music’s heartbeat is labored and uneven, the shine dull, and she realizes it is hurting. She holds desperately to both of them, because she knows that there will never be magic without them, that the music’s heartbeat will slow and stop, and it will die. She smiles because she doesn’t want to cry, and begins smoking to calm her nerves, and by then, it is probably too late.


	7. Sex and Glitter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ryuuichi/Tohma. Set shortly before the break-up of Nittle Grasper.

When he descends from his stage, everyone flocks around him; he is the center of their universe, their deity. Everything is sex and glitter and fevered excitement, and that’s the way he likes it best. He is sweating hard, his skin is glistening with it, and he is tired, so tired he can barely stay on his feet, but he is laughing.

After, though, he likes the darkness too, and the silent hours when breathing and heartbeats become loud enough to pound in his ears like the bass of some song they have not created yet, the best one because no one but the two of them knows it. Sometimes he thinks he might like that best, the darkness covering the sex and the glitter until it becomes private and he can keep it all greedily to himself. In the darkness, everything is his and nothing is forbidden. He can own the shining thing he covets, if only for a short while.

When the sun comes up like stage lights, there is a halo of gold shining on his pillow. He knows it isn’t his to touch, but he does, because the dazzle of it is impossible for him to resist, though he knows he must eventually let go. Words come spilling from inside him, his essence, and later, he gives them away too. They come out sex and glitter and mix with the pure shine of the music that carries them away, the shine he craves and can never have enough of. He watches the words and the music fly away and he sings himself into exhaustion, trying to preserve the feeling of flying.


	8. Weird

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ukai family. Set anytime, really.

Most people think Saki’s family is weird.

She considers them as she sucks on a spoonful of cherry shaved ice. Papa is chasing a giggling Mama down the beach. His back is glittery in the sun — Saki knows this is because she begged and begged until Mama bought the sparkly kind of sunblock, then told her to keep it a secret from Papa to let it be a surprise. Now they both sparkle all over with glitter and drops of water in their hair, and Papa seems to be threatening to tie Mama up with her own bikini and throw her to the sharks. Mama jumps over a sandcastle with a whoop, but Papa is not so lucky and goes sprawling. Then they are both being chased by some old lady who is threatening to beat them senseless with her cane for ruining her masterpiece, and Mama is laughing so hard that Papa has to scoop her up like a princess and carry her after the second time she trips. They both collapse under the umbrella next to Saki, Mama squeaking when Papa pulls her down on top of him. She gives him a loud, smacking kiss before turning to Saki and grinning. “Ooh, cherry ice, gimme!” Papa grunts as she bounces up to sit on his stomach and take the treat into her own hands. The angry old lady regards them scandalously, Mama finishes off the dessert, and Papa’s laugh is wheezy because he still has Mama sitting on him. Saki giggles as Mama pulls her into her own lap and sticks another spoonful of the melting ice into her mouth.

“You should be ashamed of yourself!” the old lady calls, waving her cane. “Carrying on like that in public!”

All of them ignore her. After all, most people think Saki’s family is weird.

Saki thinks they’re wonderful.


	9. Unspoken

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tohma/Eiri. Set anytime during or after the series.

“I’m not the naive kid you want me to be, Seguchi,” you tell me with annoyance, pushing me away as always.

Not naiveté, I want to explain. That isn’t what I want from you at all. “I loved you for your innocence,” I want to tell you. “And after it was gone, I loved you still.”

Who else could claim that? No one. Only I have ever loved you that much. Probably, only I ever will. You don’t understand — it isn’t that I want you to be someone you no longer are. I just want you.

It’s really that simple.


End file.
